1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to a system and method to facilitate communications among various team members or subscribers and, more particularly, to an automated system with a priority connect capability which allows all members or subscribers to keep in touch and facilitate communication.
2. Background Description
Effective team communication is critical to success in today""s business world. More and more teams are dynamically formed to achieve specific objectives. And increasingly, team members are geographically distributed and mobile. It is important to have an effective method to help team members to communicate with each other easily and timely.
Adding to the complexity of the problem, an individual may have many ways, or xe2x80x9cpoints of contactxe2x80x9d (POC), whereby he or she could be contacted. With the proliferation of various communication devices, it is common for a person to have multiple phone numbers (e.g., office, home, cell), a pager number, a home and an office facsimile number, a few e-mail addresses, and an instant messaging account, etc. Some POC are tied to a specific physical location such as home or office. Some POC only refer to a communication mode such as e-mail or instant messaging which can be accessed using a variety of devices. Some of those POC may be considered xe2x80x9cprivatexe2x80x9d to the owner and are shared with only a few selected associates. An individual may also have specific preferences in terms of how he or she should be contacted depending on, for example, the time of the day and the identity of the person trying to make the contact. In addition, POC may change frequently. It could be hard for individuals, e.g., members of a team or subscribers to a system, to keep track of every team member""s or subscriber""s POC. Helping a user to effectively use the various communication channels in order to reach another team member or subscriber in a manner that is simple for the user and best satisfies the user""s intent and the team member""s or subscriber""s preference is highly desirable. Since a team member""s or subscriber""s POC indicates the best way to be contacted, the chances of a user making a successful contact to another team member or subscriber are thus increased.
There are currently several personal assistant related services available in the market. They are voice based, using speech technology to handle user interactions. These systems rely on the user to keep track of their own personal contact list and allow calls to be made to an entry in the personal contact list. For example, Wildfire (http://www.wildfire.com) remembers up to 150 personal contacts, with six phone numbers for each. While such services facilitate communications from subscribers to called persons, the automation provided is limited and requires the user to search through a POC they have defined for the called person in order to find and successfully make the desired contact.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a system and a computer implemented method for keeping team members or subscribers who are not necessarily co-located in touch with each other and facilitating communication.
It is another object of the invention to provide an easy means for the user to reach other team members or subscribers through one of the many team member""s or subscriber""s POC and to control how and if he or she can be contacted in a variety of contexts.
According to the invention, an automated system, such as a virtual personal assistant, is provided for message and call notification, reminding the user of scheduled activities and to-do""s, etc., and includes a priority connect capability. The priority connect capability assists a user with his or her communications by executing communication tasks that are delegated to it. For example, a user can simply ask a virtual assistant with the priority connect capability to xe2x80x9cget a hold of Bobxe2x80x9d. The system would interpret the user""s intention and make a best effort to connect to Bob using Bob""s points of contact stored in the system.
The virtual assistant of the present invention provides each team member or subscriber of the system with a public points of contact (PPOC) list which he or she populates with his or her particular POC. The team member or subscriber has the ability to set access restrictions such as when and who can use each POC. To allow team members or subscribers easy access to non-team members or non-subscribers and to supercede POC listed for team members or subscribers, each team member or subscriber is also provided with a personal contact list (PCL) in which he or she can list people such as family members, friends, and business contacts, and their corresponding POC. When a team member or a subscriber tries to contact another team member or subscriber, the virtual assistant will derive a POC list based on the other team member""s or subscriber""s POC (if any) listed in the user""s PCL and the POC that are listed in the other team member""s or subscriber""s PPOC list (if any). The virtual assistant uses this derived POC list to initiate a contact.
As an example, the priority connect might work as follows:
1) The user says to the virtual assistant, xe2x80x9cGet hold of Bobxe2x80x9d.
2) The virtual assistant looks for xe2x80x9cBobxe2x80x9d in the user""s personal contact list and finds two entries that matches xe2x80x9cBobxe2x80x9d.
3) The virtual assistant says to the user, xe2x80x9cDid you mean Bob Kerry or Bob Hope?xe2x80x9d.
4) The user responds by saying, xe2x80x9cBob Kerryxe2x80x9d.
5) Since Bob Kerry is also a subscriber (or team member) of the system, compiles an ordered list of Bob""s POC based on the user""s PCL for Bob and Bob""s PPOC.
6) Following the failure of trying to reach Bob at his office phone number, the virtual assistant automatically calls the next number on the list.
7) When the virtual assistant is successful in contacting Bob, it informs the user, xe2x80x9cHere is Bobxe2x80x9d and connects the two parties.
8) The user carries out his or her conversation with Bob.
Thus, the present invention provides a much more powerful method to facilitate communication among team members. Each team member can maintain a list of POC to indicate how he or she would like to be contacted. In addition, he or she can also provide a personal contact list to the system. When asked to contact someone, the system uses the information in the user""s personal contact list and the other person""s POC to make a connection by trying a plurality of the combined POC in an order that best reflects the user""s intent and the other person""s preferences. The benefits provided by the invention include:
The system takes advantage of the POC provided by the person to be contacted, reducing the burden of maintaining a complete and up-to-date personal contact list by each of the team members or subscribers to the system.
The system automatically tries the available POC of the person to be contacted until either a connection is made or the options are exhausted, reducing the user""s workload.
The system intelligently captures the user""s intent and tries its best to satisfy it.
The system respects the preferences of the person to be contacted on how he or she should be contacted by consulting his or her preferred POC list and any access restrictions for those POC.